A good thought of the day

Beware of him who tries to poison your mind against another under the pretense of helping you. The chances are a thousand to one he is trying to help himself.

South African poet and painter Breyten Breytenback tells of a black man named Freedom who was the property of a one-legged slave owner in the days before the abolition of slavery. Whenever the owner bought a new pair of shoes, he gave the left one, which he couldn’t use, to Freedom. Eventually, wearing two left shoes deformed Freedom’s right foot, and he was permanently crippled by the “generosity” of his master. Don?t be fooled by people who attempt to further their own interests under the guise of helping you. Listen to advice from others, thank them for their interest, and make up your own mind about what is best. Follow their advice if it fits with your plan for your life, but don’t hesitate to discard it if it doesn’t. In all the world, there is only one individual who knows what is best for you, and that person is you.

The guy was a slave owner, what more can be expected. What an extreme and irrelevant example. Also, slavery has not been abolished.

And when the person realizes that the advice he/she disregarded was actually helpful, only to be placed in a less than ideal situation, then what.

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That was merely an example it can fit into a lot of other areas of life. If you can do your best to understand a persons circumstances and their motives behind poisoning your mind against another you'll get a better understanding of why their doing what they are.

People befriend others all time when their not genuine or sincere. Have you heard keep your friends close or enemies closer. Someone could show interest, be seemingly friendly or generous but in reality their motives aren't sincere at all. Their generosity could insidiously harm you. With sociopaths they wear a legion of friendly faces and you can often not realize you're a victim until it's too late and the damage is done.

One example is a guy that got into a car to reconcile with a certain gang, they must have given the impression they were being generous to forgive him. What happened? He disappeared off the face of the earth never to be seen again.

Another example when someone is bullied and they confront their abuser to make them accountable. Their is something called DARVO. Deny the abuse, attack the victim attempting to make them accountable for the abuse, thereby reversing victim and offender. Attacking the actual victim's credibility.

One could argue the victim is trying to "poison the minds of others" but the thing is their legitimately doing that to help themselves. Now the actual abuser is doing it to help themselves but their their doing it is for a liar who is putting a facade, with selfish reasons they can't be the abuser therefore they have to be the victim. The main message here is beware

.I have observed that actual abusers threaten, bully and make a nightmare for anyone who holds them accountable or asks them to change their abusive behavior. This attack, intended to chill and terrify, typically includes threats of law suits, overt and covert attacks on the whistle-blower's credibility, and so on. The attack will often take the form of focusing on ridiculing the person who attempts to hold the offender accountable. [...] [T]he offender rapidly creates the impression that the abuser is the wronged one, while the victim or concerned observer is the offender. Figure and ground are completely reversed. [...] The offender is on the offense and the person attempting to hold the offender accountable is put on the defense."

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Basically the abuser is trying to poison the minds of others to make himself look like the victim. It's all because he is trying to help himself.

Hindsight is always 20/20 but at the end of the day you know yourself much better then others. People who barely know you, even family or loved ones can often have the wrong impression. It's called a confirmation bias. There are many other biases as well.

I'm not saying others don't offer good advice but if it doesn't make sense for your life plan or where you want to be headed then don't follow it, that way it's on you.